A. E. Housman Quotes
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The thoughts of others Were light and fleeting, Of lovers' meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady; So I was ready When trouble came.
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They say my verse is sad: no wonder.Its narrow measure spansRue for eternity, and sorrowNot mine, but man's.This is for all ill-treated fellowsUnborn and unbegot,For them to read when they're in troubleAnd I am not.
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They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
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Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
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Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.
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The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowersStream from the hawthorn on the wind away,The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May.
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Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
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Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
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Good-night; ensured release,Imperishable peace,Have these for yours,While sea abides, and land,And earth's foundations stand,And heaven endures.
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I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.
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The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
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Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out... Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
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The laws of God, the laws of man he may keep that will and can; not I: let God and man decree laws for themselves and not for me.
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Could man be drunk for everWith liquor, love, or fights,Lief should I rouse at morningsAnd lief lie down of nights.But men at whiles are soberAnd think by fits and starts,And if they think, they fastenTheir hands upon their hearts.
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Lovers lying two and twoAsk not whom they sleep beside,And the bridegroom all night throughNever turns him to the bride.
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Existence is not itself a good thing, that we should spend a lifetime securing its necessaries: a life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life is no more than an elaborate furnishing and decoration of apartments for the reception of a guest who is never to come. Our business here is not to live, but to live happily.
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Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;Breath's a ware that will not keep.Up, lad: when the journey's overThere'll be time enough to sleep.
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Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
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Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men think it is, and we were young.
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Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
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We for a certainty are not the firstHave sat in taverns while the tempest hurledTheir hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursedWhatever brute and blackguard made the world.
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Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
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The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
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The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.